Who I Am

My Professional & Educational Background

I have a BA in Economics from Randolph-Macon Woman's College and a MA and PhD in Higher Education from University of Michigan. I've been working in higher education for over 20 years, having got my start in summer programs and admissions. My current area is institutional research.

What I Do

What's Institutional Research?

I conduct institutional research at the University of Michigan with my colleagues in the Office of Budget & Planning. We collect and analyze data about the University's operations--as well as information on the University's peers--in order to improve decision-making, evaluate policy, and inform the University's many constituencies.

Areas of Focus

What I'm Typically Working On...

I do a lot of work related to the University's admissions efforts. Throughout the admissions season, I help analyze application flow and applicant quality, and attempt to predict how many admitted students will ultimately choose to enroll.

I also do some legislative analysis and help the University to respond to requests from the state and federal government.

In recent years, I have also focused on the undergraduate experience. In 2009, 2010, & 2011 my office administered the UMAY Survey (for University of Michigan Asks You) to get student feedback. This is part of a larger effort among a consortium of universities, including our colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley. We're still looking for ways to make the results useful to people across campus, because we think that data have a lot of potential to shed light on the undergrad experience. U-M students are diverse, ambitious, energetic, interesting, and opinionated, so it's been a very engaging and satisfying project.

Most recently I've been especially interested in issues of campus climate, and on lower-income students throughout the higher education pipeline.


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